5/03/2006 12:31:00 am -
Reported by
Shaun Lyon

May 3, 2006 • Posted By Shaun Lyon

Saturday's episode, School Reunion, achieved the joint highest AI (measuring audience appreciation) of the bank holiday weekend, with both the episode of Doctor Who and Five's CSI: New York both scoring 85. This is the same score as New Earth secured a couple of weeks ago, making these Series Two episodes two of the five most popular instalments since the return of the series (see OG news, 18 April).

Sunday evening's BBC Three repeat of School Reunion attracted an average of 599,400 viewers (4.1%), 57,200 up on the previous Sunday's Tooth and Claw repeat, and about 60,000 up on the Sunday repeat of Dalek on the same Sunday in 2005. School Reunion was BBC Three's second-placed programme on Sunday, behind the sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, and was fifth in the multichannel top ten, behind two editions of The Simpsons, the Two Pints episode, and a Sky Sports programme.

We also have a detailed breakdown demonstrating the series' popularity among children in the UK: of School Reunion's 7.6m overnight average, 1.2m were under 16, an audience share of 55%. Doctor Who is by far the most-watched television programme among children, its nearest rival being BBC One's EastEnders (0.9m, 36.7%). The ITV1 competition on Saturday, the Hulk movie, reached only 0.3m under-16s (18.3%). Interestingly, the same chart shows that, while Totally Doctor Who's audience of 0.8m is equivalent to the figures for Blue Peter, only 0.3m (up to 19%) of the viewers for each children's show are actually children.

Meanwhile, the BARB consolidated ratings for the BBC One transmission ofTooth and Claw on Saturday 22 April are now available. With timeshifted viewings taken into account, the episode was watched by an average of 9.24m viewers, the tenth most watched programme of the week (behind five episodes of Coronation Street and four episodes of EastEnders) and the third highest television show. This is an increase of 0.62m on the previous week's episode and is 1.26m higher than the 7.98m achieved by World War Three on the same Saturday in 2005.

The second edition of Doctor Who Confidential, Fear Factor on Saturday 22 April, was BBC Three's top-rated show of the week, with 0.65m viewers, reaching number 16 in the week's multichannel chart. The Sunday evening repeat of Tooth and Claw charts at number eight for the channel with 0.56m.

Finally, ratings analysis in this week's edition of Broadcast concentrates on Doctor Who's performance on 22 April: 'The second episode of Doctor Who on BBC1 on Saturday at 7.15pm improved by almost a million to 8.8 million, a 42% share. This was thanks in part to a strong lead-in from the big FA Cup semi-final between Chelsea and Liverpool from 4.50pm which attracted 6.5 million, a 43% share. The previous week's opening episode was hamstrung by Strictly Dance Fever's poor 3.8 million/22% and by ITV1's decision to offer a strong holiday movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which took 4.9 million, enough to hit the Doctor's share. This week, by contrast, ITV1 pretty much conceded the night by starting with a repeat of Midsomer Murders from 6pm which had just 3.3 million/18% share.' (Thanks to 'Shaun Lyon', Steve Tribe)